


Goodnight, Cecil (Brother Mine)

by SociopathicArchangel



Series: i didn't realize this was a sad occasion [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, I ONCE AGAIN BUTCHER CANON, THE FINAL ANGST OF 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9129247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicArchangel/pseuds/SociopathicArchangel
Summary: “Someone is going to kill you one day, Cecil,” his mother says, blankly. Unfocused. There but not there. “And it will involve mirrors. Mark my words, child.” There but not there.Cecil giggles.In the other room, his brother twitches from a nightmare that’s there but not there.





	

“Someone is going to kill you one day, Cecil,” his mother says, blankly. Unfocused. There but not there. “And it will involve mirrors. Mark my words, child.” There but not there.

Cecil giggles.

In the other room, his brother twitches from a nightmare that’s there but not there.

* * *

 

Cecil is good with speaking. He knows this, his brother knows this and his mother knows this. There is no question that Cecil can take the most mundane of things – like the narration of his day from start to finish – and turn it into a fairytale that can make even the most hardened citizen of Night Vale turn foggy-eyed with the soft ethereality of it. It’s no wonder he’s prophesied to be the Voice of Night Vale.

Cecil sees and speaks. But that’s just about it. He sees what he sees, what the most of his eyes can take in, and he speaks of it. And his voice is woven from void and stardust itself, but Cecil’s eyes are nothing remarkable.

Kevin, however, Sees.

He sees what is there and what is not there, and Cecil remembers it clearly, the first time Kevin Sees and clips himself by the coffee table that’s hovering in the middle of the living room. His brother doesn’t even have the strength to glare at it to make it stop hovering, and it just merrily keeps at its defiance of the laws of physics. Cecil glares at it instead, and it shamefully remembers the function of gravity, not that gravity always works in Night Vale, but it works most of the time.

“Kev?” he asks, voice high and small but already hypnotizing and soothing. It gives Kevin enough traction to open his eyes and look at him, momentarily distracted from the migraine that’s drilling itself into his head.

His third eye is blinking rapidly, Cecil notes, and its iris is nowhere to be seen.

Cecil stands from where he is sitting, scribbling into his Little Reporter’s Book of Big-Boy Note-Taking. “Mom?” he calls out, not taking his eyes off from where Kevin is dangerously swaying. He bounds over to his brother to steady him. The lack of height difference is helpful. “Mom, something’s wrong with Kevin.”

He gently leads Kevin to the couch and tickles it so that it doesn’t devour either of them, and then lets his brother sit. Kevin doesn’t so much as sit as collapse onto the furniture. Their mother enters the room a few seconds later, looking for her sons with slight confusion. It clears up as soon as she finds them on the couch and sees Kevin looking like death warmed over.

Cecil scoots aside as she sits and immediately puts a hand on Kevin’s forehead. Kevin is making a keening noise that reminds Cecil of a dying animal, like the ones he hears sometimes from the unfortunate rodents his mother often kills in the backyard.

“Cecil, be a dear and fetch me belladonna from the top shelf, would you?”

Cecil nods and jumps off the couch, running to the kitchen. Fever, then. Kevin’s hands were a little warm, and maybe that was because of the fire cooking him from the inside out. Cecil hopes he doesn’t get too bad. Kevin has promised to take him to the bowling alley tomorrow.

When he comes back, Kevin’s babbling something about streetcleaners and antiques and dust storms and puppies. Their mother’s brow is furrowed, concerned and befuddled, but determined to ease her son’s pain. Her eyes are glossing over.

Cecil walks over and hands her the jar of belladonna. She snaps out of her stupor and turns to him. Her hands are shaking slightly.

“Thank you, dear,” she says with a small smile.

They position Kevin on the couch so that he’s lying on his back. His mother makes tea with the belladonna and haves him drink it when he’s not stuttering about infestations and running for one’s life.

A few minutes later, Kevin is sound asleep and Cecil watches the steady rise and fall of his brother’s chest. Rhythmic. Peaceful. Just like Kevin should be. Cecil doesn’t realize he’s frowning until he feels the set of his mouth.

“Is he going to be okay?” Cecil asks.

“Yes,” his mother says.

“What happened?”

She only looks at Kevin and doesn’t answer.

Cecil picks up his notebook and writes. He writes about the molten lava running under his brother’s veins, the light brewing just under his skin, and the words and images and memories and not-memories spilling out from his mouth, stumbling in their haste to get out before the others.

When Kevin wakes up the next morning, Cecil is sitting on the floor, patiently waiting for him to wake up, still writing. He doesn’t realize he is writing until Kevin looks at his notebook.

He sets it down gently.

Kevin wraps his blanket around himself and hugs his knees to his chest before he speaks. He licks his lips. “Wednesday,” he starts, tilting his head in confusion, then nods to himself. “Wednesday,” he repeats, “Trisha, two houses from here, is going to buy an antique. It will escape.”

“Can anyone even buy antiques?” Cecil asks.

Kevin smiles and shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes there are things you can sell and things you can’t, and things you can buy and things you can’t, and things you can buy and sell and things you can’t.”

“And things you want to sell but can’t, and things you want to buy but can’t, and things you want to buy and sell but can’t,” Cecil says.

“Yes.” Kevin chuckles.

Cecil preens with the approval. Kevin’s laughter is pleasant.

“Stay in the house,” Kevin says, “Thirteen people will be bitten, and one will be torn to shreds.”

Cecil tilts his head, confused as to how his brother knows all of this, but he feels that there is truth there, sitting behind Kevin’s eyes. Kevin doesn’t lie. Not to him. Kevin looks out for him. He is Cecil’s brother after all.

“Okay,” Cecil says.

Kevin continues about a dust storm two weeks from now, an unexpected attack from street cleaners three days after that and a puppy infestation that’s still far, far away.

Cecil writes it down, ever the dutiful reporter, warning an audience that isn’t there of the dangers that are to come.

He is not at all surprised when everything Kevin says comes true.

* * *

 

Sometimes Kevin stares at the clouds for too long. Cecil would walk out of the living room with his brother on the couch and when he comes back a few minutes later, either the front door or the window is open. Up on the roof, Kevin is there, staring high into the clouds. If he goes there by day, he has a hand positioned over his brow to shield his eyes from the light; if he goes there by night, he is simply staring up into the sky, dreamily.

Once and only once has Cecil seen him stand up on the roof while it is raining. The clouds are thick and harsh, and the rain is pouring like it’s never going to pour again, as desert rains often are. Kevin is just staring up at the clouds, soaking wet.

Once and only once has Cecil tried to follow his brother up on the roof. He goes to his own room on the second floor and opens a window, carefully trying to step out onto the roof.

When his foot hits the roofing tile, Kevin’s head immediately snaps towards his direction, all three eyes open and alert, and then Kevin’s suddenly ushering him inside. Cecil tries to protest, but Kevin gets inside and shuts the window too.

“Don’t look at the light, Cecil,” Kevin says, kneeling down and raising a finger to make his point. Cecil frowns in confusion. Kevin continues, “The darkness is your salvation.”

Cecil studies his brother’s eyes, bright and fever-filled. He’s read that staring up into the sun will blind people, but Kevin is fine. The color of his eyes is even more vibrant, like it’s been soaking sunlight, but he doesn’t look like someone who is about to go blind.

The eye on Kevin’s forehead closes. The eye on Cecil’s forehead throbs.

“The darkness you will bring,” Kevin says. Then he stands and smooths down his brother’s hair. “But don’t look at the light.”

“Why?”

“Please,” Kevin says. He turns to Cecil and his face crumples up, like it’s painful to even talk about it. His eyes start to water. Cecil faintly gasps. He doesn’t want Kevin to cry. “Please don’t look at the light.”

Cecil reaches up and touches his brother’s cheek. Kevin blinks and a tear slips down his face.

“Okay,” Cecil says.

Kevin breathes out and it’s like the entire desert breathes with him. “Thank you.”

* * *

 

Cecil talks about school and the new curriculum and the boys scouts and Earl Harlan, and Kevin listens. Their mother listens, whenever she can, but these days, she’s mostly drifting, like she’s sitting in the middle of a daydream with one foot stuck in reality. The boys have learned that it’s best not to bother her when she’s like that. Their sister is taking care of her anyway; she’s more competent than either of them.

So Kevin tucks Cecil in bed and listens to him tell his stories. It’s a funny reversal of roles, but Cecil falls asleep all the same, when his words tire themselves out and the fatigue overtakes him. Then Kevin smooths his hair back and kisses his forehead. He says, “Goodnight, Cecil.” And then he turns off the light with a hum and closes Cecil’s door behind him.

Sometimes, Cecil asks if mother is okay or if Abby is okay. Kevin tells him if mother was conscious and fully aware of her reality today or if Abby is doing well with juggling school and caring for their mother.

Very, very rarely does Cecil ask Kevin what he’s Seen in the clouds, or in the light, or in the few mirrors that are in their house. Mostly because it’s simultaneous to asking Kevin how he is, and while Cecil wants to know how his brother is doing, what Kevin Sees is often not the sort of things Kevin should be Seeing.

Sometimes Kevin says, “Lucinda will break her leg today.” Or, “Josie Ortiz will meet a very special friend today.” When Cecil asks for explanations, sometimes Kevin gives them and sometimes he doesn’t. Especially with Mrs. Ortiz. He usually just giggles, puts a finger to his lips and mouths, “Illegal,” like the smartass that he is.

Most of the time, Kevin looks haunted and sad. He tells Cecil that mirrors are dangerous and the he should stay out of the light.

Those, he doesn’t explain.

“Why do you keep on looking at the clouds if you don’t like what they’re showing you?” Cecil asks one night.

Kevin’s eyes widen slightly and he leans back just a bit, like he’s shocked that his brother is asking him that. Then he looks sad again; his shoulders sag and he slouches. Cecil thinks that his brother looks very, very old.

“I made mother a promise,” Kevin says. When Cecil opens his mouth to ask what kind of promise, Kevin wags a finger at him. “Ah-ah-ah! Mother also made me promise not to tell.”

“But you always tell me about what you See!”

“Scorpion promise,” Kevin says, “Can’t break it.”

Cecil pouts. But he also doesn’t want his brother to suddenly keel over and die of poisoning due to the Scorpion venom he ingested when making the pact. It must have been serious for his mother to pull a scorpion promise on one of her children.

“I made mother a promise,” Kevin repeats. “And I love you all too much to break it.”

“You really can’t tell me?” Cecil asks.

His brother chuckles, then sighs. “Oh, Cecil,” he says. He bends down to kiss his brother’s forehead. “If I only could. But I need to protect you as much as I can.”

“I don’t see how keeping secrets that people need to know could protect anyone.” Cecil crosses his arms defiantly, childishly.

“It’s not the secrets that you need to be protected from,” Kevin says, sitting up properly, “It’s from what you’ll do when you learn of them.”

Cecil blinks.

“There are things in Night Vale that the government hides because they are afraid of what we will do when we discover them,” Kevin says, and Cecil takes it as gospel. (When he is older, he will fight for this ideal, and he will not remember why this is so important to him, but he will fight.) “But there are things beyond Night Vale that are far, far more dangerous, and there is a time and place to learn them. Learning them out of time will be fatal.”

“So…you have to keep it secret to keep us safe?”

“To keep you safe, yes,” Kevin says. He looks away. “One day, I’ll fail.”

Cecil frowns. He can’t imagine Kevin doing that. He says as much.

Kevin laughs.

* * *

 

(“You have to, Kevin. I’m sorry,” says their mother.

Kevin nods. He knows too. He knows that their mother loves Cecil so, so much, even if she loves all of them. He knows that Cecil is the Voice of Night Vale. He knows that his brother is destined to be the voice of the desert.

But that isn’t important to him. What is important is that Cecil is the one who will bring the darkness to defeat the light (the blinding light at the edges of his vision, the blinding light that is far off in the future and yet whispers its threats into his ears and into his nightmares, the blinding light that will destroy everything he’s ever loved, the blinding light he can save only one person from) Cecil is the one who will tell the history of those that history forgets, Cecil is the one who will change their desert town.

Cecil is his brother.

Somehow that weighs heavier than everything else.

“I know, mother,” Kevin says.

“I’ll have to start covering mirrors,” his mother says. “Tell your sister nothing of it either. If she can’t See, then this is to only be between the both of us.”

“Yes, mother.”

She nods. “Do you know how far off it is?” she asks, “That terrible light you’re always talking about?”

Kevin looks at the table and frowns. His vision blurs. “No,” he says, “I think it’s far off, but…”

Time doesn’t work in Night Vale. _Anything_ could set it off.

His mother understands. She nods again. Then she reaches over and pats his hand. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” she says. After a pause, she adds. “It might be easier to distance yourself from him.”

Kevin frowns further. In the back of his head, the light laughs and laughs and laughs.

When he gets out of the kitchen, he spots the mirror over the fireplace. It smashes when he throws a figurine at it.

He’s always hated the bloody things.)

* * *

 

“Stay away from mirrors,” Kevin tells Cecil one day.

Cecil tilts his head to the side, brow furrowed. His voice isn’t as high as it used to be anymore, and he’s almost catching up to Kevin’s height.

“You’re the second person to tell me that,” he says. He shakes his head. “Mother didn’t tell me outright, and I thought she was being funny, but she – she meant it. It was implied.”

Kevin doesn’t seem surprised. “Follow her advice,” he says, “And mine. Stay away from mirrors.”

“Well, it’s not like I _can’t,_ considering she’s covered nearly all of them.”

Kevin snorts. “Still, she can’t cover _all_ the mirrors in Night Vale.” Then he turns to Cecil, looking confused. “Can she?”

Cecil shrugs. “We never know with our mother.”

“Yeah,” Kevin says, “We never know.”

There’s a thud in the backyard, and then a wail of an undoubtedly dying animal. Both of the boys look towards the direction of the noise, but they’re past wincing now. Their sister isn’t around the house. If she was, she’d cluck her tongue in disapproval.

(There is something to be said about how Cecil shies away from mirrors and how Kevin shies away from light, when on a daily basis they hear their mother killing animals in the backyard. Sometimes she smiles as she does so. Sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she cries whimpering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

(Sometimes she says, “Cecil” when she’s apologizing, sometimes she says, “Kevin”. Most of the time it’s “Kevin”, and Kevin pretends he can’t hear her and pretends he doesn’t know enough of the future to know why she’s crying.)

They used to be shocked whenever she did that. Cecil would cry and Kevin would hug his brother close to himself, all the while biting down a _“What is wrong with you?!”_ because unhinged or not, she is still their mother. Maybe this is why they are like this. Maybe this is why Kevin Sees things and faces he shouldn’t see, Sees things in the clouds and in the rain, Sees things in the desert sand. Maybe this is why Cecil Speaks of hope and despair and things to come and things that have passed.)

Kevin lifts his nose to the ceiling and sniffs. “There’s a storm coming.”

Cecil looks towards the windows. The sky is clear.

“When?” he asks. He’s never doubted his brother’s Sight before.

“Tonight,” Kevin says, “It’s moving fast.”

* * *

 

(Kevin clenches his fist. Not yet, he prays. He doesn’t want the light to come yet, he doesn’t want to betray Cecil’s trust yet, he doesn’t want to leave his family, he doesn’t _he doesn’t he doesn’t he -_ )

* * *

 

Cecil wakes up to the pounding rain in the middle of the night, not even trying to grasp onto the edges of an already fading dream.

It wasn’t the season for rain. When you’re in the desert, even if it never rains, there is a season for it – that one time in the year when it does, and it pours as if the world is ending and it’ll never get the chance again. But it’s not the time for it. Not that time works in Night Vale, but the rain has always been respectful.

But Kevin has never been wrong, and Cecil has stood up for that and believed in that. He trusts his brother with his life.

Cecil takes in a nasally sniff and wipes his nose with the back of his hand, wondering why it’s suddenly stuffy. When he cleans his hand on the blanket, a drop of water slips from his cheek and onto his fingers. He frowns and reaches up. His cheeks are wet.

He’s crying, he realizes. It’s too late to try and catch the dream now. It’s already slipped out of the window and drowned in the rain.

* * *

 

( _Look at me._ Kevin thinks, in the maze of his mind, made up of memories of the past and memories of the future, and fleeting unrememberings of the present. _Look at me. I’m the one you want. I’m the one you need. I’m the one that’s important. You don’t need him. You need me._

The light wants one of them, that’s for sure. Everybody in Night Vale is special. Not everyone can cook food out of things that aren’t edible, or shapeshift, or fly, or sing without having a mouth. But not everyone is prophesied to be the Voice of Night Vale either, and not everyone is gifted with Sight.

The light, for whatever reason, wants the Voice of Night Vale.

Kevin thinks it’s because the Voice of Night Vale’s influence is vast and efficient, and it can either bind someone in its beauty or free someone in its validation. It is a useful tool if anyone wants to conquer anything.

And the light _wants._ It wants to consume simply because it can consume, it wants to take simply because it can take, it wants to rule, it wants to become, it wants to _be._

Too fucking bad the Voice of Night Vale also happens to be Kevin’s brother.

_LOOK AT ME._

The light flinches, and Kevin bares his teeth. Wide wide wide _wide wide wide until his jaw **s p l i t s** and blood drips down down down and doesn’t stop until he’s knee-deep in red._

Cecil has his words. Kevin has his images – his visions, his memories, his imagination. He can see the red spilling out of his broken jaw and he can see a lighthouse standing in the middle of that red ocean. The lighthouse isn’t lit. Its inside is black, and Kevin adores the black. It’s better than the awful light he’s staring down. Better than the light he’s been trying to convince for years that if there’s any Palmer sibling it wants to take, it’s him.

Kevin has a strong mind. Stronger than anyone in Night Vale. With an imagination vast enough to trap the light and leave it lost as he runs and runs and hopes to stay one step ahead, even if he has to leave his family just to keep them safe. Just to keep Cecil safe.

If the light chooses him, if it chooses to shove itself down his throat instead of his brother’s, then Kevin will run and run and run and make sure he never comes back to Night Vale. To make sure he will never see Cecil again.

Kevin knows he will most likely fail, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

But the light is here, and Kevin’s progress needs to speed up. He needs it looking at him and far away from his family.

 ** _LOOK AT ME._** )

* * *

 

It’s still raining outside when Cecil decides he can’t sleep. The clock is stuck at three in the morning and has stayed that way for three hours before he goes down to get a glass of milk. Along with the rain not arriving when it’s scheduled, time is glitching out. Best to just lay down and enjoy the few moments of reprieve before linearity decides to fix itself and business goes on as usual.

Kevin is standing in the kitchen. The lights aren’t on, and he’s standing by the window, with only the faint glow of the streetlamp outside to illuminate his face.

He doesn’t turn to Cecil.

Cecil shivers and rubs his arms as he feels the temperature drop in the room. The heater isn’t broken, he thinks, unless somebody forgot to answer its riddle earlier.

“Did you know,” Kevin whispers, very, very softly, that Cecil almost doesn’t catch it. “That when you put a dead sparrow in the water, it’ll make the sound of a crying child?”

Cecil stiffens.

Kevin continues, like he doesn’t mind who’s there. “Birds are like that, really. When you hold them tight enough for them to realize they are about to die, they let out a shriek – and if you listen just closely, it sounds like the scream of a dying child.”

Cecil’s feet are cold. He doesn’t quite want that milk anymore.

“Do you think anybody hears them, Cecil?” Kevin asks. He still doesn’t turn away from the window. “Do you think anybody cares? I once heard mother drown a bird. It screamed so much.” He giggles. “I thought it sounded a lot like me.”

Cecil stares at his brother and doesn’t recognize him.

“Of course,” Kevin says, smiling like he’s amused, “Nobody listens. This is the desert. It rarely rains here. Nowhere to drown.”

Cecil thinks about his tears and thinks there’s plenty to drown in.

* * *

 

(That night, Kevin cries himself to sleep.

In the morning, he puts on his best smile.)

* * *

 

Cecil doesn’t understand.

There are plenty of things Cecil doesn’t understand, and he’s okay with that, but he’s decidedly not okay with this.

He’s just come home from a day in school and is excited to relay it all to Kevin. Abby is busy with their mother, and Kevin is already in the living room, doing his homework. Habitually, Cecil tickles the couch and falls into it, already launching into his latest tale of Earl Harlan and the Cannibalistic Frying Pan (“It eats _other_ frying pans, Kevin!”) with much gusto.

Instead of smiling at him fondly and telling him what he thinks, Kevin turns to him with disgust and sneers at him.

Cecil is so shocked that he doesn’t hear what his brother says, just sees his mouth opening to spit more acid into the wound.

Kevin takes his work with him and leaves the living room.

Cecil doesn’t leave the couch until morning. When he does, his cheeks are stained with tears.

* * *

 

It gets worse.

Kevin never tucks him into bed anymore and he has to get used to getting into bed himself, telling his stories to the four walls of his room without his brother as an audience. The walls of his bedroom are a good audience, yeah, and they shift to make their opinion known, but they can’t hug him or kiss him goodnight or say, in that exasperated and fond voice, “Oh, Cecil.”

When Cecil asks Kevin if he did something wrong, Kevin just gives him a dirty look and says, “Ever tried asking if you do anything right?”

Cecil tries not to cry when he asks his mother. She just looks at him with a hard look in her eyes and nods to herself, then looks away. Abby hugs him, as clueless as he is, and they both hope Kevin is just afflicted with something that’s been going around town. Everybody has been getting sick since that out-of-place rain a few months ago.

But then months pass and summer comes and Kevin takes to avoiding the house whenever he can. Cecil asks for him whenever he comes home, but his mother is somewhere far away and his sister shakes her head no.

When Cecil starts interning at the radio station, he is proud to announce it at the dinner table. His mother is…pleased, he thinks. His brother scoffs disdainfully and Cecil’s expression falls, feeling like he swallowed glass.

“What’s Burton thinking, hiring _you?”_ Kevin says, “They’re actually wasting resources over you?”

Cecil swallows. The phantom glass in his throat scrapes the walls of his esophagus. “Y-yeah, well,” he says, “I _am_ prophesied to be the Voice of Night Vale.”

Kevin laughs at him, harsh and dry. When he looks at Cecil in the eye, he looks feral, and Cecil thinks, _That’s not my brother._

“Really,” his not-brother says, all smiles and edges and loathing. “You don’t have the voice for it.”

Cecil tries not to throw up.

* * *

 

[He remembers, a long time ago, before the rain and the mirrors and lights and secrets and drowning birds, that Kevin once sat him on his lap and tickled him, after Cecil had told a story about talking trees in the middle of the sandwastes.

Kevin had said, “You have such a beautiful voice.” Cecil had preened.

Three months later, the prophecy of the Voice of Night Vale appeared. Cecil didn’t mind it. When Kevin told him again of how much he loved his brother’s voice, Cecil had smiled so hard his cheeks hurt.]

* * *

 

His internship gets better. Leonard is good to him. The community radio staff are good to him. But they don’t let him tell his stories or talk to him about his daily life. They just send him to get coffee or do fieldwork or edit a few things. None of them let him talk, none of them let him use his words, and Cecil is getting impatient. None of them let him weave his tales, the only thing he’s had in his entire life that he knows is _his_ and makes him _him,_ and none of them are willing to listen whenever he offers to just speak.

None of them are Kevin.

Kevin doesn’t get better either. He makes his dislike of Cecil known and Cecil rips clumps of his own hair out in the bathroom, screaming into the sink in frustration. This proves to be a bad thing to do, because the sink gets offended and screams back at him, and then the water in the house turns into blood for the rest of the day.

Abby rarely comes home anymore, too stressed with the falling out of her family. Their mother is half-catatonic, staring into the distance whenever she’s awake. Sometimes she stares up at the skies, and then she starts screaming.

Once, in the middle of the night, they wake up to their mother shrieking bloody murder outside the house. All three of them rush down in a panic, and she is there, animalistic in her fury, screaming, “You’ll never take them! You’ll never take _any_ of them! You _son of a bitch, you leave them alone –_ ”

Abby is the first one to run up and wrap her arms around her. Their mother struggles and writhes, and then Cecil and Kevin go and help their sister. Their mother claws and claws, and when she accidentally slashes Cecil’s forearm with her nails, Cecil hears Kevin gasp. A few seconds later, their mother stops thrashing and starts crying.

Abby consoles her. Cecil sits on the ground, arms loosely wrapped around their mother, before Kevin pulls him up to look at his wound.

There is a deep gash on his forearm, jagged and bleeding. Their mother’s nail had cut deeply than they’d thought.

For a moment, Cecil thinks his brother is going to scold him for being careless, but instead Kevin furrows his brow in concern.

“I’ll be right back,” he says. Cecil frowns in confusion, and a few minutes later, Kevin comes back from the house with a first aid kit. He sings to it so that it opens and Cecil almost cries with joy when he recognizes his brother. Maybe he’s okay now. Maybe he’s back.

[Maybe the madness had jumped from him to their mother, but that was a cruel thought, so Cecil ignores it.]

Kevin dresses up his wounds in silence, but with a care Cecil hasn’t seen from him in close to a year.

When he’s finished, he stares at the bandages for a very long time. “Maybe I’m going about this wrong,” Kevin murmurs.

Cecil is about to ask him what he’s talking about, but Kevin unceremoniously and carelessly closes the first aid kit, chipping off bits of plastic with the violent force of his shove, and then stomps back into the house.

* * *

 

(The light is closer to him now. It’s ignoring Cecil most of the time, and that’s good. That’s what Kevin wants, even if he just wants to get down on his knees and beg his brother’s forgiveness. He can’t.

Because the light wants anger, most of all. Anger and fury, and it doesn’t do kindness. If he is kind, it will turn its attention back to Cecil. If he can keep up his loathing – not pointed at his brother, _never_ at his brother – then the light will stay with him, and once Kevin has it strung up with his insides, he will run.

He will run and Cecil will hate him enough already that he won’t even be torn up about it.)

* * *

 

Cecil wants to know what’s _wrong._

* * *

 

**_(look at me look at me look at me LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME L O O K )_ **

* * *

 

Their mother hasn’t gotten out of the house in months. She hasn’t spoken much either. Neither has Kevin, when he is around the house, and sometimes Cecil entertains the idea of living in the radio station. Unfortunately, Station Management still rules the area with an iron fist and an unholy maw, so he discards the thought as soon as common sense sinks in.

Cecil hasn’t talked to them much, and whenever Kevin sees him, he’s almost prepared for the angry looks sent his way, even if he can’t quite understand it. He wants Kevin back, he really does, but Kevin doesn’t want to talk, and he’s not giving Cecil any room to talk, so there’s nothing Cecil can do.

There have been lights flickering all over the house though. The rain has missed its season again, so maybe this was another one of its weird things. Maybe when the rain comes, Kevin will finally be back to normal, and Cecil can forget this weird nightmare of a trial.

A half-remembered vow stirs in the back of Cecil’s head. He can’t quite place his finger on it.

He watches the lights at the edges of his vision and tries to ignore them. It’s easy at first. They’re not doing anything. It’s just like when you stare at the sun for too long, and there’s afterimages in your vision. Annoying, but ultimately harmless.

He goes to work, he comes home, sometimes he eats dinner and sometimes he doesn’t. His appetite’s been fluctuating.

Then the headaches start, riding on the Shepard tone ringing in his ears, and the light keeps getting brighter and brighter.

He starts focusing on just getting through the day while chewing belladonna and hoping he doesn’t overdose (and sometimes hoping he does, because he’s so tired), because the migraines and the flashing lights are getting to him. The rain doesn’t come and Cecil curses the infernal, impolite weather that can’t remember a schedule it’s supposed to.

He’s in his house on a rare lull in the recording work – or maybe he’s working, he’s got a notebook, a pen, a recording thing he can’t really remember the name of because he wants to sleep and his shoulder is aching and his _fucking headache –_ and the lights are flickering again. He wants them to stop. He wants to swat them out of his line of sight. He wants to claw his eyes out and scream. He wants it to rain. He wants Kevin back. He wants Abby to stop looking like she’s bearing the world. He wants his mother to be sane. He wants to be Cecil Gershwin Palmer, the boy who tells stories because it’s what makes him feel alive instead of being the prophesied Voice of Night Vale, like that’s the extent of his importance.

He doesn’t even register that he’s speaking until he turns and sees a mirror.

It’s placed so that the bottom end of it stops by his hip-level, and he can see a faint image of himself in the glass surface. Cecil frowns at himself. He doesn’t remember what hallway he is in, he doesn’t even remember if he’s in his house, but he thinks the mirror looks familiar.

He must be in his house then, and the mirror must have been covered up years ago that he’s forgotten how it’s looked like. Now that he’s looking for it, there’s an off-white sheet on the floor, looking like it’s fallen down.

The flickering increases. There’s a noise that accompanies it.

Cecil looks back up the mirror.

“H-hello?” he finds himself murmuring. There’s no answer, but the noise increases in volume. Cecil looks around, trying to find the source of the noise and the godawful light, but moving around only seems to increase his migraine. He tries talking some more to draw out whoever or whatever wants to give him a hard time, but nobody answers.

Instead, he feels his temples throbbing with the pulsing noise.  He wants to throw his notebook at the mirror, which is glowing steadily bright.

“My name is Cecil Gershwin Palmer,” he says, “And I am _not_ afraid of you.”

He wants to punch the mirror and watch the light die and the shards sink into his skin and watch himself bleed and _(Please don’t look at the light please don’t look at the light )_

“Cecil!”

It’s like being plunged into cold water. All of Cecil’s drowsiness and irritation snaps away with the next blink and Cecil drops his things, successfully turning off the recording device and breaking his fragile chewed-up pen. The notebook falls onto the ground page-first, and a leaf folds.

“Kevin?” Cecil turns to the sound of thundering footsteps and barely has time to see Kevin’s distressed face before his brother puts a hand over his eyes and wraps the other arm around his torso to pull him close.

“Kevin!” Cecil tries to kick him off, but Kevin is stubborn. “Kevin, what are you – ”

“Be quiet, Cecil!” Kevin’s voice echoes all around the house, and it sounds ethereal, it sounds otherworldly, and it sounds _unholy._ Cecil doesn’t know if he can ever sound that beautiful or haunting, but he focuses back to his situation when he realizes that Kevin barks the command not with hatred, but with fear. No, not fear. Concern. And possibly mild hysteria.

“Who do you think you are, huh?” Kevin is speaking. Cecil tries to squirm so that he can face his brother while asking him exactly what he did to earn Kevin’s scorn, but then he realizes that Kevin isn’t talking to him. “Some – some kind of _sick_ smiling god, with your light and your greed?”

The noise in Cecil’s ears start up again, but then Kevin screams, _“Don’t you fucking touch him!”_

The noise dies down abruptly. Cecil stops squirming and feels dread curl in his stomach. This is the climax of something he was never meant to see and Cecil wants to hug Kevin and cry. He wants to tell him that it’s okay, that he will listen because he wants explanations, and he doesn’t understand anything of what’s going on.

“You will stay away from him,” Kevin says, “And you will stay away from my family.”

Cecil feels the impression of amusement. It’s not from Kevin. It’s from the mirror.

“Fuck you,” Kevin says, “My brother becomes the Voice of Night Vale in his own right, _if he wants to. Fuck you._ Fuck you and your light and your blood-drenched happiness and your falsified smiles.”

There’s silence for a few seconds. Cecil holds his breath.

And then Kevin hisses. _“Look at me.”_

Cecil puts his hands to where Kevin’s own hand is, covering his eyes. “Kevin,” he whispers, at first, but Kevin isn’t letting him go. He tries to pry his brother’s hand off of him. “Kevin. Kevin, what is – ”

“Cecil.”

“Kevin, tell me – ”

“Cecil, please.” And he sounds so kind and tired and scared out of his mind and Cecil feels the sobs wracking his body before he realizes he is crying. His tears slip past Kevin’s fingers and he struggles again. Kevin lifts him off the ground with his other arm easily.

“Kevin, tell me what the _fuck_ is going on!” Cecil shrieks, hysterical, voice cracking as he cries. He screams, angry and helpless.

“I’m sorry,” Kevin is whispering, “I didn’t know what else to do. I _don’t_ know what else to do.” Kevin is crying now too. Cecil screams again and again until his throat is raw, feeling months of frustration choking the life out of him. Kevin is mumbling, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” as he buries his face into his brother’s hair.

And then Cecil hears a rushing sound and Kevin’s head snaps up.

Kevin growls, feral. “Look at me,” he snaps, “Look at me.”

The rushing sounds melts into laughing, harsh and dry, and it gets nearer and nearer.

“You will listen,” Kevin says, “I will _make_ you listen, you piece of shit, I will never let you have Night Vale and I will never let you have my brother.”

Then Cecil feels the world black out when his brother screams:

**_“LISTEN TO ME.”_ **

* * *

 

When Cecil finally takes over the radio station from Leonard Burton, he thinks about the empty room in his house and wonders why it exists when no one’s ever used it.

[When he dreams he remembers a person who is there but not there.]


End file.
